Shadow Seer (Rogue Merchant Book #3): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (read ebook pdf .TXT) 📕

the Hole,” the Gravekeeper said. “I thought that the captain wouldn’t mind taking on another passenger. Lots of space in the hold.”

“The captain’s out!” Stormbreaker snarled. “Stranger, introduce yourself so that I could add you to my enemy list!”

“What’s going on?”

Another character stepped out on deck, reeling a little. It was a broad-shouldered zwerg with a thick snow-white beard split into three braids and tied with gold rings. He was a player called Thrainul; apparently, he owned the strange vessel. He came up to me, the sour stench of booze on his breath, and peered into my eyes from under his bushy eyebrows.

“Russian, huh?” he mumbled hesitantly upon noticing Cyrillic letters in my nickname and clan tag. “Hey, mate, where did you come from? Only Asians farm here.”

“Fell from the moon,” I joked. “I need to get to Dagorrath. Can you help me? I can pay.”

“Captain, he looks like a spy from Hird!” Stormbreaker chimed in, glaring at me angrily. “I bet they sent him!”

I automatically opened my kill rating, looking for this Thrainul. This was an old character with a lot of combat experience. He used to be a member of the aforementioned Hird but left them six months before, founding his own clan. Red and green entries told me a story about bad blood between them, huge battles for some castles against his former allies, and repeated reskills of Thrainul and his new clanmates by Hird. It seemed personal, a vendetta of some kind—the series of conflicts was too long and persistent.

“I have nothing to do with Hird,” I said, shrugging. “Actually, my clan recently took them down in Helt Akor.”

I formed a battle report about the Watchers’ latest scuffle and sent it to Thrainul. Even if I was anonymous, nobody could suspect my clan of allying with Hird.

“I know the Watchers. Olaf the Prophet,” Thrainul said, suddenly chuckling. “Ha, Sphere’s a small world, too!

“Fine, come in. So you want to go to the Hole? Keep in mind, the ticket there will cost—”

“Captain, we should make haste,” the Gravekeeper interrupted him. “There were players bothering him. I had to get involved. They might gang up on us.”

“I’m so tired of these guys,” Thrainul mumbled and finished his phrase. “A thousand gold!”

A thousand! It was a hefty sum, but I didn’t have a choice. Negotiations were out of the question, it seemed. I nodded, accepting the contract, and the advance payment of five hundred gold was deposited into the account of the squinting captain.

“Well then, no need to wait anymore! Let’s set sail! Storm, wake Gobbler. Get those clay morons up and start working!” Thrainul started giving out orders. He glanced at me once again and beckoned.

“You—come with me. We need to hide you.”

We went down the rattling iron ladder into the cargo hold, where numerous steel pipes kept vaporing away. I noticed a large mage reactor and a furnace with a fire elemental with a pile of ellurite bars next to it. The submarine was clearly an artifact vessel based on the same principles as astral ships. But who had built it?

The cargo hold was packed with some boxes of dusty bottles and weird containers made of shining metal, but most of all, square lockers that reminded me of coffins. They were stacked up, and I counted at least twenty of them. Thrainul pulled out a bottle, deftly uncorked it, and took a swig, swallowing at least a third of its content in one gulp. With a gesture, he offered some to me, but I shrugged, indicating that I didn’t drink.

“Too bad. It’s great wine. In the Hole, they pay thirty a bottle for it—nothing grows there but mushrooms, anyway!” The captain chuckled and walked along the lines of coffins, carefully knocking them off. He was mumbling something under his breath in the vein of, “No, not this one,” “Dammit, there was an empty one on top,” and “Where the fuck is it?” Was he going to hide me in one of these lockers? Any seeker would notice a signal in no time

Finally stopping by one of the boxes, Thrainul opened the lock on its side and threw back the lid. Inside, it was lined with something like a mattress with a small pillow—definitely a coffin. A thought occurred to me: so who was in the other lockers? Other passengers? And why were some of them wrapped in chains with huge hanging locks?

“Climb up, don’ be scared,” the captain told me with a wink. “First-class ride, max comfort.”

“A seeker would notice a signal. Maybe—”

“Listen, this is no party boat! There are no cabins, and all hammocks are occupied by the crew! Either you get inside or get out and go your own way!”

Huh, the captain was a temperamental one. I shrugged and climbed inside the box. As soon as I stretched out on the hard mattress, a message appeared.

Activate Rest?

Ah, so those coffins were mobile rest units—basically, sleeping accommodations that allowed players to leave the game without a penalty, logging out immediately. Most likely, they were used there like cabin beds or hammocks on astral ships and ordinary boats—to move with the vessel even while offline. Thrainul’s reasoning made sense; I could log out and return several hours later when the ship was far away.

“Log out before the Asians return!” he ordered. “And put your fingers away. Return in two or three hours, and we’ll already be onsite!”

The lid swung shut, isolating me from the rest of the world, and the lock clicked. Fortunately, I didn’t have claustrophobia.

As I left the game, I didn’t hear the engines start rumbling and the wailing of the propeller; didn’t see the metallic plates move, screeching, and create a solid hemisphere above the deck as the submarine slowly left the berth and submerged itself into the motionless black water. Several seconds later, it